In the just-concluded World Youth Championships, 19-year-old Kuo Man and 18-year-old Lin Shidong both won the singles championship in the U19 age group, and in the U15 age group, Sun Yang, a 15-year-old player from the Beijing team, won the championship. Sun Yang also won the men's team championship. The Beijing team produced Ma Long, a Grand Slam player, but the Dragon team reached the end of his table tennis career, and the 15-year-old Sun Yang rose just in time.
Ma Long was born in 1988, while Sun Yang was born in 2008, and the age gap between the two reached 20 years. The Paris Olympics are likely to be Malone's last.
Sun Yang ushered in a bumper harvest in 2023, starting in March, he has won the singles championship in the WTT Junior Challenge, and Sun Yang has successfully reached the top in Berlin, Podgorica, Spa and Metz, Germany. Sun Yang also won the team championship many times in domestic competitions. In addition, he also teamed up with Yan Yulu and won the mixed doubles championship in the challenger.
In October, Sun Yang also won the championship in the open table tennis men's group B singles competition of the Youth Association. Then when it came to the U15 age group competition of the World Youth Table Tennis Championships, Sun Yang led the national table tennis team to win the U15 men's team championship and won the runner-up in the mixed doubles competition.
In the men's singles match, Sun Yang swept Japan's Minto Watanabe 4-0 in the final, winning 11-6 in the first and second games, 11-4 in the third game, and 11-9 in the fourth game. Sun Yang easily won the championship.
Sun Yang is a player who plays with a chipping style and is a relatively rare player among table tennis players. Born in Shenzhen, he received table tennis training at Shenzhen Bao'an Sports School at the age of 5, and was sent to the Beijing Youth Team by Bao'an Sports School in 2017, becoming a fellow disciple of Ma Long, Ding Ning and Wang Chuqin. Sun Yang gradually grew up in the Beijing junior team, and he began to participate in the national youth table tennis training team in 2020 and became a member of the national junior team. In 2023, Sun Yang will start to win the championship in international competitions. The new stars of world table tennis have entered the post-05 era, and 15-year-old Sun Yang is another super genius emerging from national table tennis. The male table tennis players of the Beijing team also have inheritors, Ma Long has reached the age of 35, and among the national table tennis players, it is rare to play the main role in the national team at this age.
Sun Yang, who is 20 years younger than Ma Long, will not only be in the Beijing team, but may also be in the national team in the future.